Alloy.



' resident of Niagara Falls,

GHARLES VIGKERS, OF NIAGARA FALLS, NEW "YORK, ASSIGNOR. T0 THE TITANIUM ALLOY MANUFACTURING COMPANY, 013 NEW YORK, N. Y., m.- lCORPORATIQN 'OF Specification of Letters Eatent. Patgntmil Apr, 3t}, 1918.,

MAINE.

ALLOY.

L No Drawing.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, CHARLES VICKERS, a subject of the King of Great Britain, and a in the county of Niagara and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Alloys, of which the following is a specification.

My present invention relates to alloys of copper with aluminium, commonly known as aluminium-bronzes, and its objects comprise the production, by aid of my hereinafter described, novel procedures and additions, of novel alloys of essentially the type referred .to, but distinguishable from the latter in that'the ratio of hardness and rigidity on the one hand to ductility, elongation and yield on the other is, in my said.

alloys, novelly and importantly smaller than, -I believe, heretofore attained or attainable.

Aluminium bronzes have proved disappointing, in many instances, because of the hitherto impossibility of combinedly imparting thereto not only the ductility to be expected, but also the hardness and rigidity indispensable for certain uses. They have hitherto usually proved either so highly ductile and soft as to be too easily deformable for such uses, or, on the other hand, it sought to be suiiiciently hardened for such purposes, as by, as heretofore, increasing their content of aluminium, have proved equally unavailable because thereby rendered insufiiciently soft and ductile. This I have found is due to the sudden stiffening of the alloy which takes place during its formation whenever the aluminium content is raised above a certain limit, which I have discovered to he say about 8'per cent.

l have also discovered that by suitably adding iron to the said alloys, their aforesaid, and other, objectionable features, can be practically remedied, or entirely overcome, and that by proper, properly made, additions of that metal the ratio of hardness, and rigidity, to ductility, elongation and yield can, within limits, be varied at will, and without impairment of the other characteristic and desired properties of the final products regarded as aluminium bronzes.

I have further discovered that, while the respective percentages of the copper, aluminimum, and iron, ca be very considerably Application filed September 27, 1916. Serial No. 122,344.

varied to serye the special requirements of various special uses, the satisfactory and useful range of the iron is'practically limited to from one to five per cent. of the final product or alloy, and of the aluminium from five to twelve per cent, the remainder of my aluminium bronze alloys being composed essentially of copper, or its equivalent, and the results of a long series of experiments with difl erent charges, and tests of their resulting products, indicate that aluminium bronzes' containing from 7 to 8 per cent. of aluminium are very greatly improved in all physical properties by my said additions thereto of from 3 to 4. per cent. of iron, so much so in'fact that they can be, and have been, with entire satisfaction applied to uses for which aluminium bronzes have hitherto proved unavailable.

The method resorted to for pi oduction of my novel copper-aluminium-iron alloys is, I find, of great importance as. bearing upon the aforesaid and other required characteristics and properties thereof. I have discovered that, thus far, my said alloys are best producible, and with the most satisfactory properties, only by the following procedure, viz: I charge into the bottom of the crucible, or other container, to be employed in the melting, the iron in thin sheet form, such as tin plate, or planished sheet iron, and, of course, in the proportion required to insure its percentage determined upon for the final product. Upon the iron thus charged, 1 further charge the required proportion of copper, and then melt these two metals, so charged, together. To this molten charge I then add the required proportion of aluminium, thereby insuring that any theretofore undissolved iron shall go into the solution, and thus insure homogeneity, and other desirable properties, in the final alloy product, the which, after its complete formation, I run into molds, cool, etc, as usual. One advantage of this procedure, by reason, as I believe, cit-the action ofthe aluminium upon the iron under the conditions specified,

is thatit operates to overcome the hitherto an alloy containing .9399 copper, .0446 alu-,

ninium and .0149 iron neither of which alloys do I claim as constituting any part of my invention which proceeds-"upon my discovery that as aforesaid not less than five nor more than twelve per cent. of aluminium and not more than from three to four per cent. of iron in such alloys, the ratio of aluminium to iron being not more than two and y a half to one, cooperate to not only very greatly increase ductility, elongation and yield but also and simultaneously hardness and rigidity; and that outside of these particular proportions the result isunattainable and the alloys correspondingly inferior or useless for certain purposes which my said alloys satisfactorily subserve.

Having now described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is the following, viz:

1; The herein described composition, or alloy, of copper,'aluminium, and iron, the

memes per cent. and the iron from three to four per cent. of the whole.

. 2. The herein described composition, or alloy, of copper, aluminium, and iron, the aluminium constituting not less than seven per cent. nor more than twelve per cent. and the iron not less than three per cent. nor more than five per cent. of the Whole, the proportion of the aluminium to the iron in each case being not more than two and one half to one.

3. The herein described composition, or alloy, of copper, aluminium, and iron the aluminium constituting ten er cent. and the iron four per centrof the w iole.

4. The herein described composition, or alloy, of copper, aluminium, and iron the aluminium constituting not less than seven per cent. of the whole, the iron being in each case less than the aluminium, and the proportion of aluminium to iron being not more than two and one half to one.

CHAR-LES VICKER-S. 

